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Harper_Plumlee's avatar
Harper_Plumlee
New Contributor II
2 years ago

random disconnects from a single application

My girlfriend and I use a program called Second Life. Cox internet has always been stellar for performance. Recently we got an upgraded router and suddenly we are having problems.

I recently got a Netgear R6350 router. Since I set it up we both have been experiencing random disconnects from Second Life. Otherwise the performance is still stellar. No lag spikes, no significant packet loss, just random disconnects up to an hour after logging in.

Second life uses both UDP and TCP 

During router setup I used Netgear's Nighthawk app and let it use default settings

are there any special router settings needed by Cox that I should change?

  • WiderMouthOpen's avatar
    WiderMouthOpen
    Esteemed Contributor
    2 years ago

    Nothing special from Cox but perhaps something special your old router was doing. First see if UPnP will do the trick. See here on how to enable that. If that doesn't work, disable it and use port forwarding instead. See here on how and here are the ports

    1. Open outbound access for TCP ports - Second Life servers do not establish inbound TCP connections to client systems running the Second Life Viewer software. Instead, they use the "request / response" message pattern. Enable outbound TCP access for ports 53, 80, 443, 12043, 12046 and 21002.
    2. Open outbound "session" access for UDP ports- Although UDP is a session-less transport, many firewalls block unsolicited incoming UDP traffic to a particular port unless it has seen recent outgoing UDP traffic from that same port. Activate outbound UDP for ports 53, 3478, 3479, 5060, 5062, and 12000-29999.

    If you can't get that to work, see if there is a firewall setting you can adjust. Finally, you can always connect direct to the modem, reboot the modem and try a game then. If you get disconnects then, it's not a router issue.

      • WiderMouthOpen's avatar
        WiderMouthOpen
        Esteemed Contributor
        2 years ago

        The more I look, the more it seems port forwarding isn't needed but port triggering of some kind. You don't need the traffic forwarded to a specific PC, but rather open the firewall for all the computers on your network. See here for triggering instructions.

  • Bruce's avatar
    Bruce
    Honored Contributor III
    2 years ago

    Do you have logging enabled on the router?  While you play 2nd Life, does the router log LOTS of events?  If so, trying disabling logging while playing.

    • Harper_Plumlee's avatar
      Harper_Plumlee
      New Contributor II
      2 years ago

      My router does not log enough events. It doesn't even log port triggering even though it is supposed to. I had to use Wireshark to even see relevant packets to find a port use in the triggers. I still don't know if port triggering is working because I can't get the router to log the triggers.

      • WiderMouthOpen's avatar
        WiderMouthOpen
        Esteemed Contributor
        2 years ago
        I had to use Wireshark to even see relevant packets to find a port use in the triggers

        What ports did you end up using? Anything that Cox blocks? Also, have you confirmed it doesn't disconnect when direct to the modem? I wonder if maybe with the new router, you got a new WAN IP that is in a different block and having some kind of routing problem to certain servers.